Judgment `Christ's prerogative'

In an implicit reference to the controversy following the State reception for Cardinal Connell, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Tuam, the Rt Rev Richard Henderson, has said that judgment "internally and externally is Christ's extreme prerogative".

He told the church's General Synod in Dublin yesterday he hadn't seen very much of that approach in recent days.

He referred to Jesus's tenderness with the woman at the well and the woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus waited until "the wannabe judges drifted away" before giving his verdict "in a non-public way".

The Rev Paul Draper of Cork diocese said Jesus refused the questions of both women's accusers on right and wrong. He chose instead to cherish the women, he said. Mrs Joan Turner, of Connor diocese, recalled the woman at the well had had four husbands and was living with another man when she met Jesus. He knew this. He told her so. But she was alone at the well at midday, which she interpreted to mean she was being ostracised by the other women.